That was mesmerizing! And I'm encouraged to say, I think even I could learn to use a wok well if I had a shovel!

My favorite street food is from before the www and videos. Felafel. Best at high traffic places like bus stations. With an array of prepared vegetables to keep adding in. Especially the puff fried eggplant. A number of years ago, I did a reasonable facsimile for my mother, and made her very happy. When done well, and best eaten standing around on blacktop, it's heavenly.

I’ve had wood spatulae shaped to fit a wok, but not a metal shovel type, and now I will look for one.

the pizzas always look and smell so intoxicating, but sometimes I yearn for a hot dog. Perfectly cooked, perfectly assembled. Just a couple thin lines of dijon, a little bit of sweet pickle relish..not too much...onions on the side, so I can determine if they are suitable. No other condiments. I want all the fat and salty goodness of the meat to shine. Im hungry.

I have traveled the world and eaten street food in more cities than I can remember. But nothing, and I mean that with every tastebud in my mouth, nothing beats a hot dog from a New York City street vendor.

My first fish tacos came from a beach grill in Cancun. As you said, simple charcoal-grilled white fish in a corn tortilla with fresh lime to squeeze over it.

I watched the video. Omg, so much work in the prep. We don’t have street food here. We don’t have the weather or population to support it. I just heard on local news that this past weekend was the first time in 30 weeks that there was no precipitation for the weekend. yay, lol! There are a couple “local”ish food trucks that might appear once in a blue moon, but they tend to only be at special events, like fairs.

I’ve never had a fish taco. I’d love to try one so have been looking and finally found a restaurant about 2 hours from here that has them on their menu. John, is the cabbage plain or made as a slaw? creamy or vinegar based? Fun, I assume you mean any white fish? I will buy some haddock, if that’s my best choice, and try to make my own. :)

eta: food trucks here will sell ordinary things like hot dogs or bbq if you’re really lucky, and they also sell odd stuff like fried pickles. Even more odd, like alligator, at the state fair. :)

Ricky, I’ve never had a NYC hot dog, but it made me remember the ”hot dogs” (wurst?) that were sold in the old city center of Saltzburg, Austria. Served on these small biscuit-style buns. Along with the salads from various other vendors, and beer…. o m g, heaven.

Fish taco - in the authentic beach version I grew up with, the cabbage is just whatever green stuff is around, roughly chopped, and not too much of it. Garlic if any. The fish is also whatever was caught, usually a rockfish or other white-fleshed local fish. Salt, plenty of lime juice. For authenticity, a couple grains of sand. Corn tortilla warmed up.

For the more dolled-up at-home version, it is finely sliced cabbage, cod or sole or other whitefish, salt, black pepper, plenty of lime juice, and a heaping spoonful of pico de gallo. SWMBO insists on avocado, I don't.

There are lots and lots of online recipes, many are sure to be not only awful but heretical, but I imagine some are good.

I bing watch some of those videos randomly. Usually places i've visited like Istanbul, Tunisia, Guatemala, Greece, yada. I recently followed a trip i took years ago from Rome to Venice, through Germany, France, Belgium, on a map trying to visit various cities and small towns visited. A distant memory. Many trips tp Mexico and Guatemala.

Such good 'influencer' videos i don't mind their content because it does often dive deep into small family visits to mom and pops making their mole, salsa, etc.

I asked for a wok freshman year in HighSchool for x-mas. (and the yogut maker, lol, the Salton yellow one we all had in the 70's)

When i purchased a new wok five years ago, i binged a few dozen chefs. Now makw what we like. Who cares if it is not considered traditional. We make what we like. Our method is a bit higher end chef, not street food.

I've been binging Fallow now.

I learn so much from really good chefs.

Fallow is a London restaurant. Hell good with sauces that is my weakness. Great teachers and darn handsome.

Oh, ^^DH has wanted a saucier for a 1/2 dozen years now. He sees them on various cooking shows....like Fallow shorts.

Last Fall i ordered three from WebstaurantStore...1, 2 , and three quart. for 80 bucks total. All three. (we like industrial kitchen stuff)

Meaning to decide the best size before spending 2-300...no need for that we love then as is. Meant to go to the BeachHome but he loves them here.

::snicker:: Reading along, before the pan discussion, when you said he wanted a saucier, I was thinking he meant a guy to make sauces. :) My minions are good at the hold this, stir that, but otherwise pretty useless for cooking. I wouldn't mind my very own saucier! :D

This is not what I was thinking of, but I went looking for a video for you, and this is hysterical. :)

You can have your NY hot dogs - they do not appeal to me at all, and I also do not like Dodger dogs. My favorite street food is quesadillas made on the street in Mexico City:

My favorite filling is huitlacoche with Oaxaca cheese, which is always available in Mexico City, but difficult to find here.

I'm sure I would love street food in Thailand and Japan, but for now, those destinations are not on my bucket list. Thailand would be, if Kevin would agree to go, but neither of us want to go to Japan. We felt like we got enough of that in California.

I might like Chicago hot dogs, since they seem to have more interesting ingredients, but I also have no plans to go there either at this point. If I knew someone who lived there, it would be different.

I don't think i could pick a favorite. Just about every place visited has had exceptional street food. Tunis,Tunesia not so much. Mostly being so unfamiar with ingredients. Many dishes were porrage, stews...all mixed. Seafood fantastic.

We have a walking food tour all through lower Mahattan when we have house guests. About four hours of shared to-go containers

Can't believe i found this. Google imaged 'flattened shrimp cracker'. Bingo.

I would love this. (needs more shrimp)

When I've voyaged through southeast asia, I'll admit to wanting to avoid some of the street food vendors due to perhap unfound fear of food safety. But I did sample the same "stsreet foods" in other evironments, like small little open air restaurans, food halls and trucks.

Worldwide, I'm a fan of singapore noodles, bun ga noung, yakitori, satray, baozi, sweet and savory crepes, arancini, muletas, tacos, pide, souvaki. dosa.. and do lobster rolls from roadside stands count? Seems like a theme of meat on a stick, things in a wrap, noodles, plus some others. Maybe it would be easier to describe the things I don't like, link insects, strongly fermented and/or stinky smells (stinky tofu, pickled herring, durian etc) and excessively bone-y meats (goat, guinea pig, etc)

Yeah - street food as a concept skeeves me out - sorry, not sorry 😏

Here's why:

Best hotdogs I had in NYC (and they were yum) were inside @ the Chock Full o' Nuts restaurant near Times Square - likely long gone now. It had an old school lunch counter with swivel stools, and high backed booths, IIRC.

Gooster, not unfounded. The guy in John's video is obviously trying to be clean, but that doesn't mean that it's up to California grade standards. Locals are often better adapted to the incidental local bugs. Two of my cousins got long lasting dysentery in Asia when they were young. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that doesn't happen nowadays, or at least rarely, but your fears aren't unfounded.

FWIW, my dad dealt with the legacy of dysentery he'd contracted in Japan during WWII - it really messed up his gut.

https://youtu.be/dKuNcARK_V8

More wok technique - interesting swirling tossing method. I really need to set up a proper wok station - maybe a propane tank and wok burner by the grill?

That sounds doable. With some fire control measures. ;) Watching this, I still can't help but compare to my own (lack of) skills, but had a passing revelation: The wok is a bowl shaped plancha. :)

No photo available but there is a place in my backyard, close to the kitchen door, that wants the grill, a wok burner, and a small worktable to be lined up, under an umbrella or similar rain shelter. Maybe there is a way to fit a small hose-fed sink too.

https://www.seriouseats.com/outdoor-wok-burner-review

Under a metal umbrella, right? With care to clear leaves all around…

It’ll be something trashy - corrugated tin wired to a steel pipe frame!

All right, now I"m trying to picture John's back yard grill/wok/metal umbrella/heat source, LOL, and it ain't pretty but it smells amazing. (grin)

No street food here either, mostly because we are out in the sticks, so not even food trucks in my small town and it's far too cold in the winter to eat outside anyway. You can go to the county fair once a year and get corn dogs and elephant ears and deep fried oreos, but that's not the same thing. I went to Mexico once, but didn't buy any food and I've been to Canada several times because I have family there, but they don't really have street food at Great Grandma's. I did have a rattlesnake basket from a little travelling concession stand at the base of Devil's Tower once, so I think that might count. I'd say it tasted like chicken, but it didn't, it didn't really taste like much of anything except crunchy fried batter.

I did have a fish taco in California but it was at Wahoo's, so I don't think that counts.

There are several places here in the States that I'd like to see, so maybe sometime in the future...

Annie

Since this thread has been revived….. I did make fish tacos, per your instructions, John! I used cod, seasoned with cumin and cayenne pepper. I used warmed corn tortillas and toppings of chopped avocado, shredded red and green cabbage, homemade red salsa, cheese, cilantro, lime and a tangy white dressing, I liked them very much — the cabbage is perfect with it! I agree with you that the avocado definitely isn’t needed. Hopefully this looks right. I was able to pick it up and eat it like a taco. :)

Oooo looks great! I am in L.A. and have been getting tacos from, not the street or beach, but grungy little places up and down Laurel and Coldwater Canyon Rds. Haven’t had a good fish taco yet though :-(

You're in the wrong place. Of course, I only know by what other people say, but the fish tacos aren't any where near the canyons or valley., and really, if you want the good ones, they're in San Diego, which was fish taco-land before the rest of the USA had heard of any such thing. Still, there are supposed to be some good ones in ELA and the South Bay, maybe North Valley, too.

Yeah, the places I’m going to are in the no-canyons part of the ”canyons”, nor any Lululemon leggings in sight, all pretty grungy and only take cash, none have restrooms for customers (isn’t that required by law?), but the meat tacos are cheap and good. I didn’t try the fish tacos, but had a ceviche where the shrimp were clearly not cooked, chemically or otherwise, being still see-through.. I ate it anyway. You see, we’re from Portland, where tacos are bad and twice the price, so this is haute cuisine.

Well, I thought so too, about the restrooms, so looked it up. If it's old enough and small enough and there is a sign posted that says there there are no customer restrooms, then it doesn't have to have them. It's not allowed to have customers walk through food prep areas to get to the restroom.

If you're in the Valley you'll find more taco places, but mostly aimed at cheap. If you're on the Lululemon side of the hill, there's higher end food, but probably not better tacos. You can definitely get good non-fish tacos anywhere, but good cheap tacos are probably best at the fringes, along with the good fish tacos. Some of the best tacos will be on the food trucks, especially the ones at building sites, but I only know by repute. We're (the people I eat with and I) more tacos at home and burgers out kinds of people.

Im so sorry. A bad fish taco is a shame. It's worse than no fish taco at all.

Did you try the bowling alley for tacos? Places like that often have good short order. The workers may also know where to get good fish tacos nearby that only the locals know about. The pet store and toy store people might know too. Keep in mind though, you're probably so much better a cook now that the local food that wowwed you when you were a bleary new dad might be just the same, but not up to your nostalgic memories--or current abilities to make your own. Additionally, pre-grief may be dulling your palate somewhat.

Welcome to the Southland. I'm so sorry it's for such a sad occasion, but it's a blessing that you and your whole family can be here, and be a comfort both to your Lammie and to her own family.

Maybe you can plan a trip to San Diego, or Ensenada, for fish tacos later in the year when Portland is very wet.